


Folding Socks on Thursdays

by want_exploding_pen



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Genderswap, Literally Alternate Universe, Nameless Oc - Freeform, One-Sided Attraction, Shippy feels, The power of friendship, also nothing to do with socks, but no actual relationship, but not AU, there's nothing special about Thursdays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/want_exploding_pen/pseuds/want_exploding_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru wakes up having boobs. He can totally deal with that.<br/>Until he realizes that Makoto has them too.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Or.<br/>In which it’s a normal Thursday when Haruka is magically transported into another world where he has boobs without any rational explanation as to why or how and this has nothing to do with socks at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folding Socks on Thursdays

**Author's Note:**

> This is becoming a bad habit, isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

It’s a Thursday and Haruka is submerged in his bathtub, watching the blue.

Haruka relates the blue of the water to the blue in his dreams, Dreams of water. Water so blue, the shades a million and forever that he sees in his own eyes, which are the part of himself he likes the most.

He likes because it feels like carrying a small piece of what he loves the most; something distinctively his, instinctively his, but not always and that’s fine.

That’s fine, because Haruka’s used to it.

Used to things that are a little fickle; things that flows, sometimes far and away, in velocities (his parents, Rin), and things that come filling up the empty spaces in all the way it matters the most (water that fills up the void, swimming. Makoto).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So when Haru startles awake in his bathtub, coming up for air he often so wishes he could breathe under, it’s still a Thursday, and despite being in a whole different _universe,_ the blue, the water, the blue water of his eyes don’t change.

That’s really comforting on some grounding level. Because right now apparently Haru has boobs.

He’s shirtless and sprawled open, one leg thrown over the edge of the tub and arms too, so they’re pretty obvious, protruding mutinously, and he really thinks he should be a little more alarmed about this situation but he can’t seem to gather enough bearings or maybe it’s just the way Haru rolls. (He doesn’t.)

Haru tries to remember reading somewhere that dreaming about water probably means that he’s horny and doesn’t notice it. Haru wouldn’t be surprised.

If he’s already dreaming of growing boobs, he should be waking up to damp sticky sheets that are going to be difficult to explain when Makoto comes around, instead of a half-full bathtub.

Maybe it’s because the water itself that hasn’t changed; the temperament of it never betrays him, clinging to his now softer, curvier form the same way. Having boobs doesn’t disturb the delicate balance of Haru’s blue, aquatic universe so Haru thinks for now he’s at peace with it. Them. Semantics.

Haru doesn’t have disagreement with breasts nor is he offended in anyway; they see eye-to-below-the-eye for the most parts. Health classes were once upon a time mandatory and Rin was upon a time was compulsorily juvenile. Some things you just can’t unsee.

(Makoto is the one who insisted to be continuously discomforted by all manners of female anatomy.

Haru himself is unfettered.)

So understandably Haru feels no particular reason or embarrassment to avoid them either like Haru feels no particular reason or embarrassment to anything barring some of Makoto’s more public coddling.

(Now that it reminds him, Makoto seems to take the extra mile of _avoiding_ them completely.)

But seeing them protruding from his own body certainly lends a sort of clarity in perspective.

He spends a goodly amount of time staring. Waiting. For something to explode perhaps.

He makes a decision: he touches them.

…

Nothing happens.

The world doesn’t stop, doesn’t shatter. Nor does it tilt out of its supposed axis. No explosion. Not even a bell toll in the distance.

It’s almost disappointingly anticlimactic.

The flesh there feels like the flesh on any other part of his body; their weights reasonably proportional to their approximate sizes, his left breast being just a teeniest bit fuller than his right.

Haru tries to remember anything he’d seen in Rin’s picture books and decides that he’s not grotesquely big or eye-tearingly flat. Haru thinks they’re quite attractive.

(They’re bigger than his hands, but then his hands seem smaller than usual, infinitely daintier, so it’s not like he can compare to them now.)

He pokes. They bounce, almost mutinously.

Before stilling.

He rubs his thumb across one areola. It peaks slightly, like his own nipple would when it’s too cold out to swim and he’s swimming anyway.

Haru spends a few more minutes squeezing and mapping and poking and prodding, like Dora, and this is how Makoto will find him later.

“Haru-san, are you _still_ in the bathtub—”

There is a girl Haru has never seen, but one he immediately knows with bone deep familiarity, standing in Haru’s doorway and there should really be a kind of social cue he could take to know when to react appropriately, but Haru has _boobs_ now and even that he’s handled (ha, ha, _hand_ led, ha) pretty well.

“W-What are you doing?!” The girl squeaks, face a shade of traffic-stopping red. She smacks her palms over her eyes; it sounds painful. “For god’s sake, Haru-san, put on some clothes already! We were supposed to be heading for school ten minutes ago!”

In a different world, the water remains the same, the blue too.

And, apparently, so does Makoto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His name in this world is Nanase Haruse.

The teacher accidentally calls him Nanase-kun in class during roll call and Haru was always that boy with a girl’s name (he’s _still_ a boy with a girl’s name), so that in itself is a touching experience.

Haru is _touched._

Haru is also noticing that things don’t stop being different outside of his mortal existence.

It’s a bit presumptuous to think that Haru having boobs have any dire consequences to the way of the universe, but Haru thinks it must have some relevance (he must be the cause or the effect, it’s one or the other) since some of his classmates remain as they were, some of them not so much.

Some of them seem incredibly so; two guys Haru knew were dating girls are now dating because one of them is a girl. The girl who was always the last pick during PE is the star of the volley club, still a girl. His math teacher is a social studies teacher and is heavily pregnant.

It’s a strange stranger’s land. But obviously some things are to remain the same.

Haru still swims, still blue-eyed and wearing magenta strips and is entirely unsurprised by his own predictability.

(He’d thought he’d be a one-piece type. He’s not.)

Makoto is a Masato, which is arguably the weirdest thing so far because who would name their daughter _Masato?_

But Masato being Makoto accepts it with grace and remains unoffended.

Haru distantly wonders if his parents are the same like Makoto, if they’re different like Masato, and if he’d get to see them before he go back.

Then he wonders why he wonders at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wearing a girl’s uniform is an entirely out-of-body experience (he is incredibly hilarious today, very punny) his body knows and it translates to his brain.

He thinks he should feel either greatly disturbed by the amount of skin he’s barring. Or at least be mildly hysterical that he feels nothing when he rubs between his thighs together.

(He’s slightly worried if this would interfere with swimming because his structure is different now: he has breasts, wider hips, with narrower plains and altered gravity distributions, bone construction, body fat composition, everything that might affect his kinetic motions in the water.)

A sea breeze from the east blows directly against the skin of his legs, uncovered by the pleated skirt and crew socks, sending shivers through him.

It also threatens to lift the whole thing up.

Haru is cold.

Masato is gently – very gently – scolding him, “Haru-san, you’re going to catch a cold. Here. Wear a jacket.”

She somehow takes out a full-sized cardigan from inside her bag. Her very, very small bag. It’s like magic.

Masato bundles her in the cardigan jacket that is somehow exactly Haru’s size and _of course_ Masato would have a cardigan jacket Haru’s size inside her bag and repeats the magic she did when she pulls out a scarf in soft blue wool.

The scarf is water-coloured blue that would clash terribly with Masato’s hair and eyes, but matches Haru in every way.

Haru thinks, as Masato knots the scarf, take away his penis, his parents, the world and everything in it. His socks and Thursdays. His bathtub.

But they could never ever take away his water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This world’s Makoto – Masato – is very tall. Not quite _Makoto_ -tall, but still very tall, very curvy. She is toned like a model and fills out her uniform better than most girls in their year.

She is also incredibly self-conscious about it.

Masato’s features are plain; rounded doe eyes, rounded cheekbones, slightly hunched shoulders. No makeup except for sheer pink lip balm that accents the flush in her cheeks when she laughs or reacts mildly embarrassed to everything the way Makoto would.

Her skirt is short but it’s not because she made it that way like Nagisa – who is just Nagi – obviously did, but because her legs are too long and she has to wear knee-high socks and flat, sensible shoes to make up for it.

Haru calls her name— _”Ma—sato,”_ —and Masato would tilt her head to Haru, as if pleasantly _surprised,_ smiles and listens intently like she doesn’t notice how Haru, for once, is out of depth (ridiculous, Haru is _never_ out of depth, he loves the depth) and calls Haru’s name and smiles at him the same way.

She talks, moves, even breathes the same way.

It’s – peaceful, Haru thinks. He waits for the utterly emotional breakdown that never comes.

The water is the same.

Makoto is the same.

It doesn’t matter. The world has not turned a total stranger on him yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nagi of this world apparently isn’t that much different from the Nagisa he knew.

Which is good and also bad.

Her hair is still the same shade of blinding canary yellow, curly and at shoulder-length, pulled into a side ponytail with multitude of hair clips.

She has a shade of pink on everything she owns, now less jarring on principle but more obnoxious in general.

Her skirt is scandalously tiny and she has stacks upon stacks of glittering bangles on both arms, neon coloured nails with stickers on them, and scrunched socks.

A serial cuddler and virtually unreadable; erratic good intentions haphazard in their executions, bouts of clinginess that strikes at occasionally inappropriate setting. Being female seems to make it easier for her to get away with them.

It also makes her moodier, doesn’t make her any less alarmingly perceptive about the most random things at the most random times and just thinking about it makes Haru feels almost sorry for Rei having to parry with her on alarming regularity.

“Hey, look, look! She’s gonna jump!” Nagi exclaims, eyes shining and jabbing dangerously with her pink nails at the direction of the wired fence facing the track-and-field club. “It’s still so pretty whenever I see it! Her form, her form!”

Haru stops, seeing a heart-stoppingly familiar form from far away – lean, immaculate, with long, blue, swinging ponytail – vaulting cleanly over the pole.

A bird of flight.

“… It’s Rei…”

“Huh? Rei?” Nagi frowns, confused. Unrecognizing. Something in Haru sinks at that look; which is ridiculous. Nothing of Haru’s ever _sinks._ “Oh. Oh! You mean Kei. Kei. It’s Ryuugazaki Kei!”

It’s out before he can stop himself, “Why is she still with the track club?”

Nagi tilts her head to the side, curious like a cat in the pantry. “She’s their ace. Why wouldn’t she still be with the track club?”

Why would she still be with the track club?

_Because he’s your best friend? Because he wanted to learn how to swim beautifully?_

_Because he is one of us?_

Haru watches as the coach sighs, shaking his head. He approaches Rei – _Kei_ – says something to her. Kei looks tense. Crestfallen. Head lowered, utterly defeated.

Haru remembers it: _textbook,_ the coach says. _You’re not meant for this,_ the coach says. _Fix it._

She doesn’t know how to. Of course, because she’s not meant for _that._ She’s meant for this: swimming, rallies. Rei was all sorts of terrible about, but he _tried._

He tried so, so hard.

And this should be the point where Nagisa – Nagi, it’s _Nagi_ here, somehow that distinction becomes unbearably crucial now – would come in, _should_ come, barrels in, unheeding, unwanted but so very much _needed—_

“Haru-san?”

Masato’s voice from behind him is soft, uncertain.

“… It’s nothing.”

Masato gives her a worried look. “You’re weird today, Haru-san.”

Yeah, he thinks so too.

(It would come to him later, _much_ later, that Masato is weird too.

She never actually touches him through it all.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another situation: Matusoka Ren never went to Australia.

Because she never left, it makes perfect sense that she enrolled in the same school as the rest of them.

She’s in different class but drops by at every break and drags them to the roof, which is apparently _their_ spot that the whole school knows about.

Ren is irreverent, loud, talks like a boy.

She uses _ore-sama_ to address herself and ties her blazer around the waist, unbuttons two buttons too low to be entirely unintentional about it, wears sheer black thigh-length tights and sits with her knees spread wide open.

She still says the most harmlessly selfish things, carelessly, unthinkingly, grins like a shark, with too many teeth, but her cocksureness is different than the Rin he knows. This Rin, this Ren, isn’t as broken. Edges softer. Sharp, not bitter.

Never left, never gone.

Never tried to abandon the swimming she loves the most.

Instead, she chews with her mouth open and makes dick jokes and Masato’s face and ears are dyed a permanent shade of red around her; Haru imagines a nightmare of a childhood for Yamazaki-san.

She tosses her arm around Haru’s neck – doesn’t notice or is surprisingly tactful not to notice out loud how Haru stiffens slightly when she does that – and mushes their cheeks together, cooing how adorable he is (and still weird, perhaps weirder still) today.

She fits in with them seamlessly, perfectly, like Rin would be if he had never left.

No adoring Niitori who trails after her.

Something niggles in the back of Haru’s mind, but he couldn’t place it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The swim club in this universe is infinitely different than the one he knows.

They were formed last year when Haru, Masato, and Ren were freshmen because of Ren’s forceful insistence and Nagi’s masterful blackmail slash evil manipulation of the teaching staff.

Masato is captain of course, because even in alternate universes where he is apparently deathly allergic to seafood (oh, the horror of it all) must run on common sense, but their advisor teacher isn’t Amakata-sensei and Gou isn’t their manager.

Haru doesn’t think he’s conceited in any way – Rin was, Ren is – but he’s always been sort of studiously unflappable. It made very difficult childhood birthday surprises.

So Haru is not really surprised with the JSF record sheet pinned in the locker room. Or that it has his name on it.

 _Haruse’s_ name.

100m, 200m, 400m. All freestyle because _of course_ it is.

4.53 seconds over the title runner-up.

1.3 seconds short of FINA.

Haru feels strangely like a proud mother. Father.

(Just the slightest bit _envious,_ perhaps. But swimming he does because it is what he does, not for anything else.)

He’s also not surprised that Ren has the most flawless butterfly form in her age group – in the whole Kantou, in the whole _Japan_ – because Ren is many things, and of that many things, what she’s best at is swimming.

And between Haru and Ren, they bagged enough trophies to get the school to build them a temperature-adjusted natatorium that could make Samezuka cry, with a very nice locker room and communal baths with hot water, has extra budget for summer gym memberships, a former gold-medalist coach instructor, and there are at least forty other members.

Haru takes one look at the neat, sparkling rows of room-temperature Olympic-sized pools, strips out of her uniform, and dives into the water.

Apparently, there’s nothing strange about that because Masato is gently chiding her for “not warming up again, you wear your swimwear under your uniform again, why don’t you ever listen, Haru-san, listen to me.”

Ren is snickering and remains unhelpful because she’s still a dick even when she doesn’t have one and Nagi is still a hazard when attempting to enforce good habits.

The world is not as similar as Haru thought.

Nagi never talks to Kei. Only watches from afar.

Ren never left.

Haru never finds anything wrong about the outdoor pool they have back in his world. Water is water; he’d swim either way.

But the club house _is_ rather fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a fan club.

It’s probably the one thing that Haru doesn’t know how to handle the most after the whole “these are boobs, they will sway when you run” thing. Which he did handle. With considerable aplomb as he went through his first PE (and the dreaded changing room) experience as a girl.

Which was a particularly revealing first experience because that was when Haru first noticed _it._

The fan club.

Haru has a _fan club._

Haru has a fan club which is violently protective and three separate websites dedicated to following everything she does and the cheer club actually has a separate fund for her competitions.

The seniors address her as Haruse-san and her peers and juniors call her Nanase-shi _._

Girls unfold their legs when Haru sits and never sit when Haru stands and clear out the changing room when Haru walks in.

Someone drops an eraser, he picks it up. The girl swoons when he returns it.

Haru really doesn’t know what to think about that.

Nagi laughs at her when Haru makes a non-face at a group of boys who actually binned away half of their lunch so Haru and Nagi could sit at the cafeteria table.

Nagi shamelessly sits.

If Haruse is the apparent reigning queen of Iwatobi, Nagi is like the Iwatobi version of a teen idol; her phones beeps all the time and she has about two million subscribers on her vlog and everyone calls her Nagi-chan and they can’t go on five minutes without being stopped by half the school who has something to say to Nagi.

It’s probably the most unsurprising that Ren is the lovable school bicycle who gets along with the jocks like a house on fire. Haru’s seen them playing basketball during breaks and doing bro nods of acknowledgement and it’s-not-a-kiss it’s-an-incredibly-continental-way-of-saying-hi exchange in the middle of the hallway.

Haru doesn’t know what to think about that, too.

Then, there’s Masato.

Who is, right now, standing behind the school yard like a scene straight out of a shoujo manga pretending an abundance of privacy despite being pretty much in the open for half the school to see them.

“Masa-chan is, like, suuuuuuper popular, isn’t she?” Nagi says around the loli in her mouth, lips a deep shade of red from all the cherry syrup. A few third year girls stopped by to fluff Nagi’s hair and give her sugar. Haru wished they wouldn’t. “That’s like the third guy this month. You’d think they should’ve known better by now.”

They watch Masato anxiously bows to a third year, who is amiably waving it off.

Perhaps it’s because he’s a boy – or at least, he thinks he should be one, in a certain reality, he _is_ – he sort of understands why people like confessing to Masato.

Where he came from, Makoto is very sweet, very gentle. He likes everyone and likes taking care of them and everyone returns the sentiment and likes him back.

Masato is of course very sweet, very gentle too. She also takes care of everyone and everyone likes her too.

But especially the _boys._

Masato gets more love letters than most people get bank statements to the point where they made love booth during school festivals for Tachibana Masato.

It’s hilarious.

The only one who doesn’t find that hilarious is Masato herself.

The thing about Masato is that she doesn’t _feel_ bothered even when she actually does and is somehow even more gut-wrenchingly heart-broken than anyone whose heart she is supposedly breaking.

Nagi – who once dated four guys at the same time and managed to get them to sit together affably at one table at a waffle house – loves to gossip and has a lot of trashy girl magazines.

According to her publish-ready opinions, Haru’s blankness and physical appearance is as unassailable as her cool competence and it places her a little too high in a high school social food chain.

Ren is just kind of mean and kind of easy and so disconnected from the concept of shame that it’s a literal non-issue when boys wants to hang or bang her (Nagi says that in the nicest, most loving way possible).

Masato in comparison is startlingly normal; the kind of girl you grew up with next door and one that your mom would love to see you bring home because she would offer to wash the dishes after dinner.

There’s also that desperately sincere belly button bow she does, where she bends over in a certain way and you could see right down the curve of her front and the outline of her chest that you wouldn’t otherwise see because Masato is very properly buttoned up on most days.

Masato, sweetly flustered, tucks a lock of long hair behind her ear. Saying no. Saying sorry.

Haru thinks this is taking too long. So he stands and crosses the cafeteria, unobstructed even by the lunch crowd.

He comes from behind Masato, brushing his fingers against her shoulder.

The third year sees him, stilling under Haru’s cool, flat gaze, blushes furiously and stammers before excusing himself.

Masato looks confused.

From their table and on her last candy, Nagi stares at Haru like she’s figuring out a math trick question that she’s surprisingly very good at figuring out.

Masato sheepishly grins at him and says she hasn’t had her lunch.

At this point, Haru really, really doesn’t give a fuck anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After school, Haru slings the bag over his shoulder, says, “Masato, let’s go.”

Three heads whips around to him, Masato particularly wide-eyedly, and immediately he thinks: what did he do wrong now?

“We’re—” Ren, who is straddling Nagi’s chair backwards, scowls, fingers tightening around her juice box, “We’re not going together?”

She looks hurt. She probably _is_ hurt and Haru should probably say something because even though this Ren and that Rin are different, they’re still the same and ridiculous and she is probably even easier to offend and what little things Rin feel hurt about Ren probably—

“I need to go to the bookstore today to pick up some reference texts,” Haru says amazingly level. “If you want to come—”

Ren scrunches her nose, but at least she’s not hurt looking anymore. “Oh, okay. Ewww. Sorry I asked. Sheesh.”

Haru raises an eyebrow, “No, Ren, if you want to come, in fact I think you _should_ come—”

“No way,” Ren says, slurping obnoxiously through the straw. “I’ll just go the arcade with Nagi to hit on some college boys and maybe trick them into paying for the karaoke.”

“You two are horrible,” Masato says mildly, resignedly.

Ren’s answering grin is completely unrepentant.

Yes, Haru thinks, definitely feels sorry for Yamazaki-san.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“… Haru?”

“Hmm?”

“We… don’t have a plan to go to the book store, do we?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“We’re not picking up any reference text, are we?”

“No.”

“… Oh.”

Masato fidgets on her feet and giggles, cheeks pinking and hands twisting the strap of her bag. She glances at Haru, looks down, almost fluttering.

Haru stops and, because Haru is Haru whenever, tells her point blank, “You’re being creepy, Masato.”

Masato blinks rapidly, a motion of flutters.

“Oh. Oh, sorry,” Masato giggles sweetly. “It’s just that… It’s just that usually you’d be off with Ren somewhere by now so this is kind of unexpected.”

Haru stares at her.

“I-It’s not that I mind terribly, mind you,” Masato flusters, looking down on her feet and tugging a stubborn lock of hair behind her ear. She looks like she _minds._ She _definitely_ minds. “I know that you and Ren connect on a different level and I… Well, I guess I don’t feel like I should to get between you.”

_What?_

“What?”

“I mean, things were… rough for a while back and now I’m just glad Ren’s calm again.”

Ah, so something _did_ happen.

Which didn’t quite blow over, but apparently enough that Masato is very delicately threading this.

“So I really, _really_ understand,” Masato says, as if she thinks she’s convincing anyone, but maybe she does think that, plucking at the strap. “I just… miss us sometimes. You know,” She waves between them, this meaningless distance of an arm that feels longer than some of the miles in Haru’s life, “Just… Just the two of us.”

“Masato, I—”

He should say something. Anything.

He can’t.

Suddenly, Haru feels like he’s an intruder in his own body. There’s no saying he’s not; because Haru is not Haruse and this is not his place to act.

So Haru can only say the one thing he knows will convey Haruse’s sentiment correctly, because he cannot think there’s any version of himself that doesn’t think feel the same.

“… I miss you, too.”

Masato blinks again; she does that a lot. Then, she grins brightly and tentatively touches Haru’s hand before holding it between her larger one.

Haru thinks he should tell her that he’s not a child and she’s not his mother and being led around like this is really rather embarrassing.

He doesn’t.

They walk home together holding hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haru remains waking up with boobs for a week.

He doesn’t cry, but on the sixth day, he refuses to go to school and spends the whole day curling under the comforter.

Masato thinks he got a cold and makes her soup. Haru doesn’t correct her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from the toilet and the changing room and the ominous knowing looks Nagi is shooting his way, he thinks he’s fairing okay.

He even manages to hook the bra without having to turn it to the front.

Haru is so owning this being a girl thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haru gets a complimentary muffin when she buys coffee and complimentary coffee when she buys cupcake.

It takes him a while (and a tirade from Ren who is eternally full of complaints) to figure out that it’s not at all complimentary.

They just think that she’s _cute._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(They walk home holding hands sometimes, wordless and peaceful, and somehow end up mutually agreeing, without speaking, to keep it a secret from Ren.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tampons are…

_Well._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a drawer in her room that’s filled with things that belongs very obviously to someone else.

She thought it was Makoto’s.

(It’s Ren’s.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haru misses the fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a Thursday when Masato smiles (a Makoto-like smile) and says _yes._

Yes.

Suddenly, she has a _boyfriend._

Nagi and Ren are surprised, but their surprise is strangely irrelevant and disconnected to Haru.

Nagi thinks it’s cute when they shyly hold hands in the corridors, ducking their heads and blushing and takes what could be blackmail photos with her pink, frilly phone.

Ren thinks it’s stupid because _the guy can’t even swim he looks stupid he likes curling he is the curling club captain what the fuck do we even have a curling club._

Masato blushes furiously, but otherwise doesn’t seem offended.

She says they met at the library when she had time – when Haruse left with Ren, never a look back – and they like the same books and feel comfortable with one another and she really, really likes him so please don’t tease him until he cries Ren.

He’s the reason for all the no-I’m-sorrys in Masato’s confessions fest. Masato’s been waiting for him for _ages._

Masato, who is positively radiant, gazes up – _up_ – at him, who is not very impressive or handsome or witty, who is terrified of Ren, most terrified of Nagi, and  _trips_ when he sees Haru, but smiles when he sees Masato, smiles even when he knows she doesn’t see him, who looks disbelievingly _grateful_ for her to be there.

Masato looks… happy.

(She doesn’t look to Haru.)

Then, there’s Haru. Haru who _understands_ now.

They have a club here. They have _Ren._

Kei is still miserable in the track club because they do not _need_ her, and Haru, for the first time, feels frustrated by herself because she doesn’t know how to be like Nagi, gets up to Kei’s face, and tell her _it’s okay, come with us anyway._

_You’re one of us anyway._

Nagi doesn’t know Kei aside from seeing her across the fence sometimes. She watches her vaulting and thinks that her form is beautiful, but never thinks to approach her.

Because they have _everything_ for the perfect relay; adding someone else, a stranger someone, is just unthinkable.

There had never been that training camp when they threaded islands, no Rei who recklessly jumped into the sea in the storm in a fit of desperation to fit in.

Masato had never nearly died for Haruse and Haru doesn’t doubt that she wouldn’t, but the fact is she _hadn’t._

Masato calls her _Haru-san._ It’s a mean of distance, not affection.

Ren is her best friend.

The water is still the same. The blue in Haru’s eyes remains.

But this Masato. This _Makoto._

Is not.

Masato doesn’t need Haruse to need her.

Masato is the one who… drifted away.

Perhaps not accidentally, too – they’re all swimmers, they don’t _drift_ – so it’s by her choice, her motion, because Masato doesn’t understand the concept of punishment, no matter how unconsciously so maybe—

There’s a tug in his stomach, and it has nothing to do with the horribly timely cramps he’s been suffering these last two days.

Maybe it’s by _Haruse’s_ choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haru goes home without telling anyone.

He’s skipping practice and people are going to panic and file missing person report, Ren is going to be unbearably sulky later _,_ and Masato will probably _cry_ or something, but Haru is hurting somewhere, his stomach most definitely, and his head, his _chest,_ so he really couldn’t care.

Which is strange because Makoto crying has always been his fatal flaw.

Haru’s.

Not Haruse’s apparently, because this body remembers and is right now confused trying to translate everything clogging up his chest and lungs where there is cool, learned indifference. This is as close to drowning as Haru would get.

It’s as unfamiliar as Masato is apparently.

Haru dumps _her_ bag on the bed, strips off _her_ shoes and uniform blazer, and runs the bathtub. Sinks _herself_ in the water; shirt and skirt and socks.

The water envelopes _her_ _,_ like a pulsing womb. It feels like rebirth, the same sound they heard in mother’s womb.

In the end, it’s the only thing that hasn’t betrayed her.

(Him.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“Haru?”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a Thursday and Haruka is submerged in his bathtub, watching the blue.

Haruka relates the blue of the water to the blue in his dreams, Dreams of water. Water so blue, the shades a million and forever that he sees in his own eyes, which are the part of himself he likes the most.

He likes because it feels like carrying a small piece of what he loves the most; something distinctively his, instinctively his, but not always and that’s fine.

Because in this world, apparently, it’s all he has left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“—ru. Haru!”_

Haruka’s eyes snap open and she surfaces. Makoto’s – short haired, slack-faced _Makoto, Makoto, his_ Makoto –worried face hover directly above him.

Haruka feels like he’s just had a long, long, impossible dream.

“Oh thank god, I was calling and you didn’t answer. I-I thought you _drowned_ or—or something and I left my phone so I couldn’t call the ambulance and—” Makoto babbles, “Stupid, I know. Haha. Ha. W-Why are you in your uniform?”

Haruka stares.

Makoto… predictably gets embarrassed.

“W-Well,” He clears his throat. “Well. Come on then. You need to change or you’re going to be late. Again. And Ama-chan-sensei is going to—”

_Splash. Thunk._

“Oww!”

Makoto rubs the back of his head with one hand, his other elbow keeping him from lying flat on the floor with Haruka on top of him.

“H-Haru?”

He squeaks, jerking when wet hands suddenly went under his front shirt. Groping his chest.

“Haru! What are you _doing?”_ Makoto shrieks, stumbling back and crossing both arms in front of his chest. Like a girl. Which he isn’t.

_He isn’t._

“Makoto, you’re not a girl,” Haruka informs him minutely and very seriously, eyes slightly more narrow than usual as he looks into Makoto’s red, bewildered face. “You’re not a girl. That is very good.”

Haruka gives a curt nod and saunters to the kitchen; the water trailing faithfully after him, following his motion, amiable to his shaping them. Still his best companion.

It’s Thursday; he has breakfast to make.

Since it’s Thursday, saba it is.

“Haru, I don’t get you sometimes!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haruka goes to school, sees Nagisa gleefully shoving ice cubes down the back of Rei’s shirt, who looks severely harassed.

Rin is still a brooding tsundere who occasionally come calling.

They swim.

Haruka thinks when he’s in the water.

Haruka thinks somewhere, Haruse is not seeing this scene.

He wonders: if Haruse, who Haruka thinks is him in all the way it matters the most, ever does (or did), would she have chosen differently?

Makoto’s gentle touch is on his elbow, an afterimage of Masato, overlapped by that of Ren who wears her blazer around the waist and has a drawer of spare underwear in Haruse’s room, and Haruka knows _he_ wouldn’t have chosen differently.

Boobs or no boobs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haruse blinks up to the ceiling of her bathroom. She pushes back the hair clinging to her face and closes her eyes, the susurrus of water threatening to drag her under in a haze of cobalt fog.

She sees a dream world in shades of blues, that which are unfettered remain unrivalled, but then Haruse has long _learned_ to love _red._

Red in the fire, a fighting element. Red that is angry passion, never contained.

Red that is in Ren’s hair that flutters just a touch above the water.

Her head is pillowed by the edge of the bathtub; legs sprawled on the tiled floor. She is snoring, loud and public, comfortable even when she’s obviously not, like she falls asleep watching Haruse sleep all the time.

Ren snuffles, mumbles something that Haruse thinks must be either food or alien magical girl attack. She smacks her lips together, then burped.

Haruse thinks about her long, long dream; dreams of Masato who is even taller and doesn’t call her –san, of Nagi who publicly dotes on Ryuugazaki Kei who swims instead of vaults, of Ren who _left, of which the feeling upon her finding out is something very close to drowning;_ thinks _this is all of it. This is my choice._

There is the sound of the front door clicking open.

“Haru-san,” Masato’s timid, trembling baby bird voice carries over almost mutely, “are you home?”

Haruse doesn’t remember how to smile for a long time, but the body does as she touches Ren’s head, fire which doesn’t burn.

It’s like gliding under the surface.

“In here, Masato-san.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So. Uh.  
> It’s supposed to be crack, but surprisingly gains a teeny bit of depth. I could use some every now and then.


End file.
